Wolf Watch (The Madison Wolves Book 8)

by Robin Roseau

  That was when Michaela stood up. She waited for a gesture from Lara before she said, "I want to offer my own thanks." She moved to stand in front of Angel. "Thank you for your help on the flight up." Angel nodded. Michaela moved to stand in front of Serena. "Most of you here work to keep me safe. I know I'm a pain in the ass about it. But it is appreciated. Thank you."

  "You're welcome, Michaela," Serena said for all of us. The two clasped hands for a moment before Michaela stepped away.

  "All of you are friends," she said. "Okay, the jury is still out on Zoe, but we have hopes."

  Zoe smiled up at her.

  "And for friendship over these years, thank you." Then she stepped over to Angel and pulled her to her feet, hugging her tightly. I didn't hear what they told each other.

  Zoe leaned to me. "Is there more of a story?"

  "Angel was her maid of honor. They have a lot of history."

  "Oh. Wow. Okay."

  Michaela released Angel, who sat down. "And I want to thank everyone for coming. We're going to have a lovely weekend." She stopped in front of Zoe. "There's going to be a lot of kayaking. It might be too much for you. The rest of us are accustomed to it."

  "You keep up with them?"

  Michaela smiled. "I taught them. I can paddle all day. But you're not used to that. We have two-person kayaks, so talk to Elisabeth and decide if that's a better choice for you."

  "So she has to carry me?"

  "Well, I can paddle all day, but I'm not built like everyone else here," Michaela said with a smile. "Elisabeth can handle it."

  She looked around. "That's all I have, but I'm sure I'll tell a story or two yet." She took her seat.

  Zoe whispered into my ear, "Would it be okay if I said something?" I nodded, so she started to stand up. Lara was immediately there, pulling her to her feet. I think Zoe was surprised.

  "May I?" she asked.

  "Of course," said Lara.

  "I want to thank all of you for inviting me this weekend," she said. "I know I'm an outsider, and I'm starting to understand how tightly knit you all are. Thank you for making room for me this weekend."

  "You're welcome," Lara said for all of us.

  "Michaela," Zoe asked, "Did I annoy you earlier?"

  "Not at all."

  "Well, I want to thank everyone for being patient with me. I know I'm a little dogmatic."

  "A little?" said Karen. But when we looked over, she was smiling. Karen didn't usually engage in the teasing, so I thought perhaps Michaela had put her up to it.

  "Yeah, I know," Zoe said. "I guess I'm a little passionate."

  "Zoe," said Lara, "so are we. There are going to be some differences, but we are pretty protective of the environment as well. Michaela can tell you more about that. But for instance, we have an eagle's nest on the northwest corner of our property near Madison. You wouldn't believe what we do to protect those eagles. People are constantly trying to interfere with them. They ignore our 'No Trespassing' signs in order to get closer." She shook her head. "Sorry, I'm going to get myself worked up about this. You and Michaela can talk about that some more, too. Maybe you have ideas for helping us to keep people from harassing the nest. We actually have had three different people try to climb the tree, for what, we're not sure."

  "What did you do?"

  "We have the area under electronic surveillance," Lara said. "And we dispatch a team to deal with it."

  "I threatened to shoot the last one down," Karen said. "I put a bullet into the tree six inches above his hand before he began climbing back down."

  "Oh shit!" said Zoe. "Damn, I'd be afraid of doing that." She began to smile. "Buckshot up the ass wouldn't bother me though."

  She earned some chuckles for that.

  "We haul them out, and then turn them over to DNR," Lara said. "They get a slap on the wrist."

  "But if we get a repeat offender," I added, "he gets a late night visit from some very scary people."

  "Oh shit," Zoe said again. "Do you hurt them?"

  "No, but we scare the shit out of them. We haven't had anyone come back for a third visit, but it's a matter of time."

  "My point," said Lara, "is that we won't agree on everything, but we live very close to nature. You should consider us kindred spirits at least on the bigger picture."

  "That was the other thing I wanted to say," Zoe explained. "I know you, Lara, and you, Elisabeth, are very wealthy. I don't know about the rest of you, but I wouldn't be surprised even if the fresh college graduates earn more than I do. But you live like this." She gestured. "I don't know exactly what I'm trying to say, but I want to thank you for including me."

  "You're welcome," Lara said.

  Zoe sat down and crawled under my arm to lean against me.

  She felt nice there.

  "Anyone else?" Lara asked.

  Everyone was quiet, so Lara went on. "Zoe, we have a variety of traditions, and as the leader of our little clan, I get to pick which ones we're going to follow. Usually that really means Michaela picks, and she's already called for stories tonight. Sometimes the stories are true; sometimes they're complete fabrications. From time to time, we even act them out. Sometimes we tell stories everyone has heard before, but most of the time we aim either for new stories or new twists on old stories. The goal is to amuse, entertain, and bring us closer." She smiled. "I know Michaela is going to extort a story out of you, and we have all waited with baited breath to see what she forces you to tell us. There aren't that many of us tonight, so you might get a chance to tell two stories."

  Zoe nodded.

  "So, while Michaela decided it was story night, she also turned it into extorted story night. So, the way this works is simple. Anyone gets to demand a story from anyone else. If you make a demand, you should pick someone who hasn't gone yet. You will raise your hand if you want to make a demand. The only other rule is this: you cannot ask someone to share a secret that isn't hers to share. We cannot, for instance, ask for a story from Portia that would involve telling secrets that belong to her previous employer. However, lovemaking stories are considered shared secrets, so one of you could demand that Scarlett tell a lovemaking story that involves Angel."

  There were chuckles about that.

  "I am choosing first. Michaela, some time ago, you spent time away from us, and you served as bodyguard to a fairly well known person."

  Michaela began to groan.

  "You've told me bits and pieces, but you've never told anyone else."

  "Wait," Zoe said. "Michaela was a bodyguard?"

  "She's small, but she's fierce," Lara said. "Michaela."

  Lara sat down and Michaela stood up. "Thank you, Lara. I will later be asking Elisabeth to tell us stories about your childhood." She got some chuckles. "Or maybe Serena has good stories."

  Then she went into public speaking mode. I loved watching her talk. To be honest, I loved watching her, period.

  "All right. Most of you know about this, but I don't know if Portia does, and I'm sure Zoe doesn't. Some time ago, Lara and I had a disagreement how something should be done. I proceeded to do it my way instead of hers, and I found myself estranged for having done so." She turned to Portia. "Do you know about this?"

  "No."

  "I'm not going to talk about that, then. You should ask your boss about it."

  Portia nodded.

  "But the result was, I was in need of a job, and I was offered a position with a company that I guess is in competition with Elisabeth."

  "I wouldn't put it that way. We're in different corners of a similar market."

  "In other words, I spent some time as a hired bodyguard." She smiled. "Raise your hand if you know who I was bodyguarding."

  Lara raised her hand. Greg hadn't told us; just that he put her on assignment for him to keep her busy until we could get everything in place.

  "Is anyone familiar with an actress named Suzette?"

  "No way!" said Angel. "You guarded Suzette?"

  "For two weeks," she said. Mic
haela answered a bunch of questions about the actress, along the way admitting she hadn't a clue who the woman was, except she was some sort of action star.

  "And so that's the story," she said at the end.

  "Oh no, it's not!" Lara said. "Tell the whole story."

  Michaela sighed. "It turns out that Suzette is a bit of a tease. She spent most of the time trying to seduce me."

  We all grew still, and then we glanced at Lara, who was sitting calmly.

  "I think it was our third night together that we went to a club, you know, the kind where you have to wait to get in, unless you can convince the doorman to let you jump the line. And Suzette wagered on whether I could get us into the club."

  "What did you do, Michaela?" Angel asked.

  "I tried to flirt with him, but it turns out I'm a really, really bad flirt. But Suzette really wanted to get into the club, so she got us in."

  "She told him who she was?" Angel asked.

  "No. She kissed me. Hard."

  "You kissed Suzette?" Angel said. Then she glanced over at Lara, who remained calm. "Um. I mean."

  Lara laughed. "Suzette kissed her. It's not the same thing."

  "So we got in, and I asked her to not give me anything else I had to explain to Lara, if she ever took me back." She turned to Lara. "Am I done?"

  "Sure," Lara said. "After you tell the rest."

  It took Michaela another minute or two before Lara was satisfied.

  Lara stood back up. "All right. Who wants to request the next story?"

  Portia's hand shot up, surprising me.

  "Portia?"

  She stood up. "As everyone knows, both Karen and I have worked for other companies, and the sort of work we did was very hush hush. We don't talk about them. However, there's a story that Karen may tell. The details are already pretty well known in the paramilitary world, and she should be able to tell the story without invoking too many names."

  "Damn it," said Karen, earning some laughs.

  "Karen, tell the story of how we first met."

  Karen stood up. "I know a thing or two about you, Portia."

  "Yeah, but none we can tell," Portia said with a grin.

  "All right. This was twelve years ago, or so," Karen explained. "I was working for the same outfit that Michaela spent a stint with. Portia, who I didn't know at the time, worked for someone else. I received an assignment to protect the daughter of an important European business owner. There were credible kidnap threats against her. The thing is, she didn't want to be protected, so you can imagine how much fun this assignment was."

  She turned to Portia. "Do I tell the whole story, or do you tell your part?"

  Portia stood back up. "I was hired by the girl's mother to rescue her daughter from the overbearing European business owner."

  "Oh no," said Zoe.

  "Yes," said Karen. "I had really been hired to keep the girl from running away, and I was given a story about an abusive mother who had lost parental rights in court."

  "And I was hired to kidnap her. The mother wasn't abusive, but she didn't have the financial resources to fight the father in court, and he had walked all over her."

  "The girl was fourteen," Karen said.

  Portia then prompted the story from Karen, and we learned the extent to which the girl had tried to escape from Karen, including leaving Karen in several humiliating circumstances.

  "What happened in the end?" Zoe asked.

  "Portia smuggled pot to the girl, who proceeded to sneak them into my pocket while we were going through security at London-Heathrow. I got busted for drug possession, by the drug-sniffing dogs, leaving the girl unprotected. I got hauled away, and she got on a flight with Portia."

  "Oh hell," said Michaela. "And you recommended her for the job here?"

  "Yeah, well," said Karen. She turned to Portia. "You should tell this part."

  So Portia stood up. "I didn't know Karen, but I knew of her by reputation. She was known for being good, and very ethical. I wouldn't let her go away for drug possession. So I made a video of the girl slipping the drugs into Karen's pocket, and then once the girl was safe, she made a video confessing to it and explaining why. We delivered it to Karen's employer, and a few days later, we heard she'd been released."

  "We never worked for that client again," Karen said, "but my boss wasn't very pleased with him anyway, so he wasn't that upset. Portia took a risk to free the girl, and she made it harder on herself to make sure I didn't face a drug charge. That's why I recommended her."

  After that, it went around. Serena did, indeed, tell a story, but it wasn't about Lara, it was about me, and it had Zoe in stitches beside me. Then Serena asked Lara to tell another Elisabeth story, which cracked Zoe up just as much. When she was done, Lara said, "This is fun. After all these years of you telling stories about me to Michaela, it's about time for turnabout."

  Then Michaela raised her hand.

  "Oh Zoe, I think it's about to be your turn." Lara nodded to Michaela.

  "Zoe," Michaela said. "Due to the terms of our wager earlier, you understand you must be absolutely truthful and complete when telling this story."

  "Of course."

  "So I am going to give you two choices. You may tell us, in great detail, about the first time you and Elisabeth made love-"

  "Oh god," she said. "I couldn't."

  "Your other choice is to tell us the story of the first time you saw Elisabeth and knew you wanted to get to know her better."

  I stared at Michaela. The little fox was brilliant.

  Then I glanced at Zoe, and she was squirming. She looked at me and said, "They just asked me to tell your secrets, but I promised not to."

  "I'm not sure the second story is my secret," I said, "but Lara declared stories between lovers were fair game. So I guess it's your choice which one you're going to tell." I sighed. "I'm going to get you, Michaela. When you least expect it."

  "Yeah, yeah," she said. She sat down, chuckling. "Any time, Zoe."

  Zoe, with a small boost from me, stood up. She paced back and forth for a minute. She came to a stop in front of Michaela, who was smirking up at her.

  "You shouldn't make wagers if you aren't willing to lose," Michaela said. "You may ask Elisabeth about that."

  Zoe moved away from Michaela and paced some more. All of us waited to see what she would do; no one hurried her, but I would have loved to have known what she was thinking.

  Finally she came to a stop. "Elisabeth and I have only made love once, and it was in the shower of my apartment." She began blushing immediately and continued to blush as she told the entire story.

  My heart climbed into my throat. She had elected to tell that story instead of telling us about the first time she'd seen me.

  There were catcalls for what I had done, and when Zoe finished and then hid her face against my chest, Lara stood up and said, "Well, Sister. I am impressed. Clearly I have things to learn."

  I looked over at Michaela. She shrugged. It had been a valiant effort.

  Stories

  "Are you mad at me?" Zoe asked me an hour later. Scarlett had driven us into Bayfield; they would need both cars tomorrow morning. It had been a quiet drive, and I hadn't really said much to Zoe or offered much in the way of affection.

  "No," I told her.

  She moved closer, looking up into my face. "Because it feels like you're mad at me. Are you mad because I embarrassed you."

  "No."

  "Are you mad because I didn't tell the other story?"

  I turned away, but she moved in front of me. She didn't get physical about it, but she wouldn't let me hide from her.

  "You are, aren't you?"

  I didn't say anything.

  "I didn't want to tell that story," she said. "The one I told is just about sex. It was great. It was stupendous sex. It was some of the best sex I've ever had. But it was just sex."

  "So?"

  "How could I tell them about the way my heart began pounding the instant I saw you? How
could I tell them about how I just had to get to know you? How could I tell them..." It was her turn to look away, but while I didn't want her getting physical, I wasn't afraid to grab her and turn her back to face me.

  "Why not?"

  "Because I don't understand it yet," she replied. "And... I'm not ready to tell anyone but you how I feel about you. I haven't decided how I feel about you. Look, if you're upset I told that story, I'm sorry, but I'm not ready to tell them about my real emotions for you."

  I stared down into her eyes. And I couldn't detect a hint of a lie.

  I pulled her into my arms and kissed her deeply, passionately.

  She melted against me, wrapping her arms around me as the kiss went on... and on.

  "There are two bedrooms," I told her.

  "That better not be the start of a suggestion," she replied.

  I grinned. "I didn't want to assume."

  "Assume," she said. "All right?"

  I nodded.

  "Take me to bed, Elisabeth."

  * * * *

  We spent hours making love. I'd never done that before. It was very, very late when finally we fell asleep together, wrapped in each other's arms.

  * * * *

  What happened the next morning is testament to how well I slept.

  I was woken suddenly when the covers were stripped from my body and five pairs of hands lifted me straight up from the bed. I was ready to explode into action, but Lara said firmly into my ear, "Don't fight."

  That didn't stop me from roaring, but I allowed them to carry me into the bathroom. Behind me, Michaela and Scarlett had Zoe, and a moment later, both of us were thrust into the shower -- with the water on dead cold.

  We both screeched loudly, and Zoe scrambled to adjust the water as four or five of them set up a wall preventing us from escaping the shower. Zoe continued to screech until finally we began getting hot water.

  Then, all of them laughing, they fled the bathroom with Lara calmly poking her nose back in to say, "It appears you overslept. We'll wait for you downstairs."

  Zoe was clinging to me, and I couldn't tell if she was angry or not. I looked down into her eyes.

  "Um. Welcome to the clan, I guess."

  I couldn't believe I'd slept so soundly that seven people were able to enter the house, climb upstairs, surround the bed, and then grab us like that. And I'm sure one of them had to have sneaked upstairs to see we were so soundly asleep to begin with.